The enormous increase in street and highway traffic results in equal increase in number of accidents day by day. These accidents result in vulnerable material loss and human loss in terms of life or permanent invalidism. The safety of traffic on the highways and streets depends on the fact that the proper reaction of the driver and the control of speed in a given hazardous traffic situation. In addition to some acquired information, training and possession of driving competence, the driver is also required to possess a particular psycho-physiological competence, considering the dynamics of the driven vehicle, the human life and health hazards connected therewith.
Currently, the tests conducted for verifying the competency of the driver while operating a vehicle are generally limited to a written test, a summary vision test and a road test. As a matter of understanding, the written test evaluates one's knowledge of the regulation and the established “rules-of-the-road”. Conventional vision tests for verifying the competency of the drivers are typically limited to verifying the driver's static acuity and depth perception. When applicable, the road tests are used to check the driver's basic competence in handling the vehicle while the driver is driving and using the established conventions while operating the vehicle in the traffic.
Conventionally, devices for monitoring the alertness of the driver by administering successive stimuli and analyzing the driver responses to the administered stimuli are known. Typically, the accuracy of the responses involves the evaluation of correct responses, errors of commission when a response is given at the wrong time and errors of omission when a response is not given at all. Such devices include discrimination level tests characterized in that the driver needs to respond to the presence or the absence of a stimulus in the form of an audible signal or a visual signal. Disadvantages of such discrimination level tests include that the stimulus can be of such intensity so as to cause a sudden change in the state of alertness of the driver, thereby disguising the driver true state of alertness. The discrimination level detected by the driver depends on the environment in which the test is performed.
Typically, the defects commonly observed among the drivers meeting with accidents on the highways and streets are lack of alertness, inadequate depth perception, poor peripheral, night vision and inability to recover quickly from glare effects. It is therefore recognized that driver requires higher order of alertness, depth perception ability, good peripheral and night vision, and ability to recover quickly from glare effect while operating the vehicle on the highways and streets.
In light of the aforementioned discussion, there clearly exists a need of a system for testing and evaluating driving competency of a subject by measuring the psycho-physiological characteristics, the situational awareness capabilities and that would assist to overcome or at least substantially ameliorate the disadvantages and shortcomings of the conventional systems.